Space is the Place

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Film: B-

 

 

The early 1970s saw many independent films, often shot in 16mm, getting produced and a good number have become cult classics.  Given their low-budget origins, some of them gleefully accepted their B-movie status by explicitly embracing B-movies.  Like the X-rated Flesh Gordon (1973, reviewed elsewhere on this site), Space is the Place (1974) did its best to emulate B Science Fiction films.  It is now available on DVD from Plexifilm.

 

Though unrated, this film would likely get an R today, with some of its nudity and language (i.e., the constant us of the notorious ‘N’ word).  The eccentric, influential, and respected Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Solar Arkestra stars as a space traveling, off-beat Jazz-playing band who have found a new planet where African peoples can go to.  Forget the “back to Africa” movement, a new planet could serve as a new start for people who are not getting what they deserve on Earth.  With Vietnam in full swing, it seems timely.

 

However, Sun Ra (as himself) must take on a dangerous, exploiting, pimp named The Overseer (Ray Johnson, from the original Don Siegel Dirty Harry) in a battle of wits for the very souls of Black Americans.  The narrative is intercut with footage of the two playing games at a table reminiscent of the chess games of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in 1930s Horror films, likely an intended reference.  X-Men fans will recognize that reference as well between Patrick Steward and Sir Ian McKellan.  The space travelers also have NASA, the FBI and other federal interventions to be concerned with, not to mention the media, which is portrayed in a way as amusing as Nicolas Roeg offered it in The Man Who Fell To Earth (now a great DVD set from Anchor Bay).

 

Some elements of the “Blaxploitation” trend are here, but not as explicitly as expected.  This film is much more in the Science Fiction mode, a visual ride that influenced everyone from Parliament/Funkadelic (who did a Glam take on these Egyptian fashions, perhaps a reclaiming of the look from the all-white Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cleopatra (1963), which influenced many 1960s fashions to begin with), and Earth, Wind and Fire, who took the look to more extravagant heights as stadium concerts caught on.  The connection to religion is partly through Cleopatra, an inadvertent product of the Biblical Epic cycle that was reaching its 70mm heights by 1963.

 

The film is not coherent in the book-like sense, but the inconsistencies are not as severe since this cut restores footage lopped-off from endless bootleg copies.  As it stands, the 82 minutes (which began as 90 according to Sun Ra biographer John Szwed, but is Coney’s final cut) offers a unique mix of music, the struggle of the two antagonists at the table in the middle of nowhere, and the actual action happening in the populated world.  Though not radical, despite his association with Bobby Seale and The Black Panthers, the film is political enough that an oversensitive Nixon Administration would have still been hitting the panic button.  Their only comfort could be in writing it off as incoherent, and the film only had limited theatrical bookings.

 

On a music level, this is interesting work, and Sun Ra cut over 100 albums before his death.  There are several women who talk in theater-like performances as certain music sections play.  The film wants to convey its feeling of Vietnam being apocalyptic years before Francis Coppola or Michael Cimino got their masterpieces to the big screen, but the film has no footage of the film, though there is strife on TVs in the opening (again a few years ahead of Roeg’s film).  It also makes for an interesting comparison to Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running (1973, reviewed elsewhere e on this site), in both takes of future homes that are possibly compatible.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks decent for its age, as the stock shows its age with some limits in the EastmanColor.  The enhancement benefits the look by adding a rich ness intended by the stocks in the first place.  This is better than the fine DVDs of Flesh Gordon or Ganja & Hess (also reviewed on this site), two films comparable for their time, especially Ganja, a Black-cast Vampire film more daring than the brief Blacula franchise.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 is unfortunately Mono, and the audio shows its age beyond the low-budget situation.  It is still a little richer and a bit fuller than it could otherwise be, but the music must not have been taped in stereo and/or those masters did not survive.  It is a theatrical mono film, however.  Extras on the DVD run 16 minutes, including an interview on-camera with director Coney and producer Jim Newman, and 1972 home movies used in concerts of the Arkestra (get it, ARK-estra) that also includes visiting Egypt.  65% is monochrome, the rest in color.  The DVD also has a booklet with Essays by Szwed, Coney, and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.

 

That makes this a fine disc release that should bring a whole new interest in Sun Ra, the era the film came out of, and allow the film to take its proper place among key indie classics when the term really meant something.  Oddly, no film had attempted to meld Science Fiction and music like this since the 1930 Sci-Fi Musical Just Imagine, Fox Films answer to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926) that itself would later influence the look of the Disney film Tron in 1982.  Space is the Place is part of this proud legacy.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo